Cy Young winner Doug Drabek visits PNC Park, conjuring memories of '90s Pirates

Before he took the mound at PNC Park to throw out Saturday evening’s ceremonial first pitch, Doug Drabek joked that he needed to warm up his arm.

After he one-hopped the ball to AT&T SportsNet’s Robby Incmikoski, who served as his catcher, Drabek may well have wished he’d loosened up the old cannon beforehand indeed.

Drabek, 60, currently serves as pitching coach for the Reno Aces, Triple-A affiliate of the Arizona Diamondbacks.

The Aces have already clinched the Pacific League East division title and are en route to the playoffs.

In the meantime, Drabek had a couple days to himself and returned to Pittsburgh, where the Pirates honored him with a bobblehead night ahead of their game against the Chicago Cubs.

“I was able to pull three days off,” Drabek told reporters before Saturday’s game. “After tomorrow, we’ve got three games left and then we start the playoffs. They were nice enough to let me off.”

Drabek pitched with the Pirates from 1987-1992, winning the NL Cy Young Award in 1990 behind a 22-6 record and career-best 2.76 ERA.

During his time in Pittsburgh, the Pirates under manager Jim Leyland rose from mediocrity to one of the best teams in baseball, winning three straight NL East division titles from 1990-92.

However, despite Drabek’s best efforts, and those of a solid supporting cast around him, including Barry Bonds, Andy Van Slyke, Bobby Bonilla, Jeff King, Bob Walk and Stan Belinda, the Pirates were eliminated in the NLCS three straight times in 1990, 1991 and 1992.

The 1991 and 1992 seasons saw the Pirates fall in the postseason to the Atlanta Braves in back-to-back years, with Game 7 of the 1992 NLCS continuing to haunt the memories of Pittsburgh baseball fans for close to 30 years.

That brutal loss, in which the Pirates blew a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the ninth inning, with the Braves coming back to win 3-2, preceded a dark era of Pirates baseball that turned into 20 consecutive losing seasons.

As fans of the club will certainly know, it wasn’t until 2013 that the Pirates made the playoffs again, as well as posted a winning record.

All told, since 1992, the Pirates have recorded just four winning seasons and three postseason appearances in 30 years.

In that unforgettable Game 7, after Atlanta’s Sid Bream slid under catcher Mike LaValliere’s tag to score the game-winning run, sending the Braves to the World Series, Van Slyke sat in center field, collecting his thoughts in a now-iconic moment that was highlighted during the original television broadcast.

Andy Van Slyke sits in disbelief after Sid Bream scored the winning run in Game 7 of the 1992 NLCS. pic.twitter.com/BYK2KMvTYq

— Baseball In Pics (@baseballinpix) January 17, 2019

Van Slyke’s body language said it all: It was over.

The Pirates let three chances to get to the World Series slip through their fingers, with the third and final try serving as the most disappointing failure.

The nucleus of players that had catapulted the team to the top of the NL East inevitably was going to disband after 1992. It was the last dance for the talented early 1990s incarnation of the Pirates, and they came up short.

After ‘92, Bonds departed in free agency for San Francisco while Drabek joined the Houston Astros. Bonilla had signed a lucrative deal with the Mets in the 1991 offseason.

“In the back of everybody’s minds, they knew that it was a possibility,” said Drabek, who was charged with the loss in all three of his starts in the 1992 NLCS. “Once that was done, it hit a lot of guys to where (we thought), ‘OK, what’s next? What’s going to happen next year?’

“I think it was a combination of that and (1992 being) the third year in a row that it didn’t happen. I think the disappointment and the uncertainty of the future popped into a lot of guys’ heads.”

By the time Leyland departed following the 1996 season, the Pirates had posted four straight losing seasons, never winning more than 75 games in a year.

And that was only the beginning of the franchise’s misery.

For Drabek, 1992 was far from the end of his own career. He placed fourth in the NL Cy Young Award voting in 1994, going 12-6 with a 2.84 ERA with Houston.

He played his final two seasons in 1997 and 1998 with the Chicago White Sox and Baltimore Orioles before retiring, having spent 13 years pitching in the big leagues.

Drabek remains just one of two Pirates pitchers, along with Vern Law in 1960, to capture a Cy Young Award.

That accomplishment is quite literally posted on the walls of PNC Park, with a mural honoring Drabek’s 1990 season featuring prominently along the stadium’s inner tunnel, frequented by players and coaches.

Fast forward to 2022, where Drabek now makes his living bringing along a new generation of pitchers.

While his employment warrants allegiance to another ball club, the Pirates, particularly the fans in Pittsburgh, occupy a special place in Drabek’s heart.

Were the Pirates to win a World Series, accomplishing what he and his early 1990s teammates in Pittsburgh could not, Drabek would sleep easy, probably with a smile on his face.

“I would be very happy for them,” Drabek said. “Obviously, I’m with another organization hoping we’re doing it, too. But I’d be happy for them, just because I was given a great chance here and I was part of it here and part of a team that came close three times and didn’t win.

“If they got a group that did, I’d be happy for them and for the city of Pittsburgh, too. The people were great here.”